"The State of Israel ... will ensure complete equality of social and political
rights of all its inhabitants irrespective of religion ... it will guarantee freedom
of religion and conscience." - May 1948)

Hiddush News, October-December 2014

Israeli restaurants and hotels can lose their kosher certification if they put up Christmas decorations or even hold parties for New Year’s Eve. Rabbi Uri Regev says the Rabbinate’s policies reflect a deep hostility toward Christianity and non-Orthodox Judaism.

The High Court of Justice ruled on Thursday that a rabbinical court was within its rights to retroactively annul a conversion because the convert in question had deceived the court when she said she undertook to observe Jewish law.

Whatever had been accomplished in the 19th Knesset is now history, but despite the temporary setback, that fight continues both, a concerted effort to break the Haredi monopoly on personal-status issues such as marriage, divorce and conversion.

A simple analysis shows that the only significant change between the current government and the next one will be a replacement of the center-right government by a government comprising the right and the ultra-Orthodox parties.

Hiddush demanded from the Attorney General that he open an investigation of Rabbi Mordechai Blau for suspicion of using threats and extortion against hareidi women to intimidate them and prevent them from running for office.

Benjamin Netanyahu decided he can’t govern with the center-left parties of Yesh Atid and Hatnua, and intends to build an alternative coalition with the Haredi parties, which he left out of the government in 2013.

Uri Regev requested of Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein to require that any agreement arrived at between Prime Minister Netanyahu and the hareidi religious parties be publicized before the vote takes place on early elections.